'Diablo 3' team deathmatch scrapped, duelling still coming

Blizzard has announced that it no longer plans to release a team deathmatch mode for Diablo 3.

The company had originally planned to launch team deathmatch along with a player vs player duelling mode, and had even had the mode playable at Blizzcon, but today announced that the mode has been scrapped.

"Our core problem is that our Team Deathmatch mode doesn't feel like a great addition to Diablo III," Blizzard's Jay Wilson said. "It's not up to the quality that Blizzard gamers expect or that we feel you deserve, and it doesn't really fit with our goals for the rest of the game."

One of the primary concerns is the character balance, as each class was designed and balanced for fighting enemies rather than other players. Blizzard said that the character classes worked for casual player vs player combat, but that it did not work as well for a more hardcore competitive mode like team deathmatch.

There was also the issue of depth, as Blizzard said testers began losing interest in the mode before long due to the lack of additional objectives.

"Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they'd want to spend a lot of time in," Wilson added.

Despite the setback with team deathmatch, Blizzard still plans to release a player vs player duelling mode. Duelling will be added as a free update in version patch 1.0.7, which will be available in early 2013.

Blizzard did not rule out the possibility of team deathmatch reappearing in the future as a new mode, likely one with a focus on team-based objectives; however there are no plans to release it as a pure deathmatch mode anymore.